Bring Your Compassion, Bring Your Forgiveness
by LuckyLadybug
Summary: Takes place between the second and third movies. The Dazzlings, now struggling to get by as waitresses, have a heated argument. Sunset Shimmer stumbles on them in the aftermath.


**My Little Pony: Equestria Girls**

 **Bring Your Compassion, Bring Your Forgiveness**

 **By Lucky_Ladybug**

 **Notes: The characters are not mine and the story is! Here is a second** _ **Equestria Girls**_ **holiday offering, taking place after the second movie.**

The friendly café had been filled nearly to capacity most days during the holidays. Christmas songs blasted overhead while garlands, lights, and wreaths decorated the counter and windows and hung from the ceiling. A decorated tree stood in the corner, all lights blinking and twinkling.

For the most part, the staff was in the Christmas spirit as well as the customers. At least two of the waitresses, however, had long ago grown fed-up with all the holiday cheer.

" _Ugh,_ if I hear _All I Want for Christmas is You_ one more time . . ." ranted a girl with her long purple hair divided into two ponytails. She slammed an empty tray on the counter. "I thought we left all of this peace and harmony and 'goodwill to men' stuff back in Equestria with Hearth's Warming. But they have a whole holiday here for it too!"

Her companion gave her a highly annoyed and unimpressed look as she brushed a stray lock from her curly golden mane aside. "There's nothing you can do about the music they choose to play or the holidays they celebrate," she said through gritted teeth. "Complaining about it is not going to make our time here any more bearable."

"It's not so bad!" a perky girl with a bouncy blue ponytail chimed in. "Free candy canes!" She was sitting on a stool, sampling a complimentary peppermint stick from the tumbler on the counter.

The purple-haired girl rolled her eyes. "As if that makes up for everything else. You only think it does because you're _the worst._ "

"You are!" the blue-haired girl countered.

The golden-haired girl facepalmed. "Everyone is looking," she hissed.

Actually, most of the customers were much too occupied with their food or their own conversations to pay any attention to the three weird waitresses. But the scolding managed to shut the argument up anyway, much to the golden-haired girl's relief.

The purple-haired girl sighed in frustrated resignation. "Just how long are we going to be stuck here delivering other people's food?" she bemoaned. "We almost had it all, a complete life of luxury after years in this crummy place, until the Rain Barrels ruined it."

"There's nothing we can do, Aria," the golden-haired girl retorted. "Our powers are gone, destroyed! That will be the case even if we go through the portal and get back home."

"We could try again to glue the pendants together!" the blue-haired girl offered.

Aria was still not impressed. "Not even that stupid Gorilla Glue worked, Sonata," she ranted. "And even for the five minutes they held together, we weren't able to do anything of value with them."

Sonata shrugged and licked her candy cane. "It was just a thought."

Aria looked back to their leader. "Seriously, Adagio, we'd stand a much better chance of surviving in our own world than we would here. We already found the portal's open all the time now. We should go through it and get back to where things are familiar again."

Fed-up with the arguments, which she had heard many times from her second-in-command, Adagio scowled. "Look. We don't know if time passes the same in both worlds. Things could be extremely different back there by now. At least after all this time, we understand how this world works. It would be stupid to go back to a world that we might not understand any more. Not to mention, if we do we'll probably be imprisoned. And in any case, do you really think we could survive that well without our pendants? We'd be shunned, outcast, the laughingstock of all sirens!"

"I was always kind of that way anyway," Sonata said, closing one eye as she inspected the candy cane.

"Well, Aria and I _weren't,_ " Adagio countered.

Aria scoffed. "We've always been outcasts here, except for when we were able to use our magic to make people like us."

"But we don't belong in this world," Adagio said. "It's understandable that we might not fit in. It would be worse in our world, with our true kind turning us away. What would we do then?" She picked up her tray. "As demeaning as it is to tend to other people's whims instead of having them tend to ours, at least we can support ourselves here."

"There's fast-food places back in Equestria too," Aria muttered.

Adagio whipped back to face her, her golden curls a wild mass. "If you want to go back so bad, then why don't you?" she snapped. "You're right about the portal being open all the time. Maybe you should just slip out the back way and go through it tonight, when no one's at the school to see and stop you."

Momentarily stunned by Adagio's outburst, Aria stood stock-still as she processed the words. "Maybe I will," she said at last. "It has to be better than letting you make all our decisions for us and listening to Sonata act like an idiot all the time."

"Hey!" Sonata cried indignantly.

Aria turned, leaving her tray behind as she stomped off to find the nearest exit. "Don't bother following me unless you want to go home too," she called over her shoulder.

"I wouldn't follow you!" Sonata shot back. " _You're_ the worst!"

" _Ugh!"_ Adagio raised a hand to her aching forehead. "Good riddance."

Sonata paused, blinking rapidly as the bell over the door jingled and announced Aria's departure. "She's really going?" she said in some surprise.

"I hope she is," Adagio retorted. "Then I won't have to listen to the two of you argue all the time." She scowled. "On the other hand, now I'll have to deal with you all by myself," she grumbled.

"Excuse me," a voice suddenly called out from the crowd. A hand emerged, coming down on Adagio's shoulder. "I've been waiting for a waitress for the last . . . oh."

Again Adagio spun around, in a mood to push the hand away and snarl at the owner. But when she found herself looking at Sunset Shimmer, she was as surprised as Sunset was.

"Adagio Dazzle?! Sonata Dusk?! You're _working_ here?" Sunset exclaimed in shock.

"That's right," Adagio said through clenched teeth. "And we don't want to lose our jobs." Putting on a falsely friendly air and speaking loud enough for others nearby to hear, she said, "So why don't you just go back to your table and one of us will be right with you to take your order?"

Sunset took a step back. "That's alright," she said, immediately leery and wondering what sort of disaster would happen if one of the Dazzlings served her. "I'll just go somewhere else."

"No!" Adagio grabbed Sunset's shoulders. "We insist." She attempted to steer Sunset through the crowd and to the nearest empty table.

Bewildered and on guard, Sunset allowed it until they were past the other people. Then she pulled away. "Really," she said, "I think it would be better for all of us if I just left."

"There's not going to be a scene," Adagio retorted. "As I said, we don't want to lose our jobs."

Sonata nodded. "We've already lost Aria," she blurted.

"What?" Sunset stared.

"Nevermind!" Adagio barked. "That isn't important." She whipped out her notepad. "Okay, what do you want?"

Sunset slowly placed her order, to go, wondering what was going on all the while.

If Adagio noticed her curiosity, she wasn't about to acknowledge or feed it. She abruptly turned, applying the falsely friendly façade again. "I'll get this to the kitchen right away," she promised. When Sonata lingered, almost looking like she wanted to chat, Adagio grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

Sunset watched them leave, not any less bewildered than she had been before. It was strange in and of itself to see the Dazzlings working here and catering to people, after they had tried so hard to get everyone to cater to them and want to serve them while they kicked back and did nothing. They must have been forced to swallow most or all of their pride to seek out such jobs. After the Rainbooms had defeated them, they had been left with nothing.

Sunset could relate to that feeling of nothing, although with her it hadn't been quite the same since she had felt sincere remorse and anguish for the horrible things she had done and the Dazzlings—or at least Adagio—certainly didn't seem repentant. For them, perhaps, not feeling that, their defeat had been worse than Sunset's.

At least, though, they had had each other. Sunset had often wondered what had caused them to Pony up when they hadn't been tapping into the magic of friendship. They didn't even seem to like each other that much. But they certainly had excellent teamwork and they needed each other for their magic to peak, just like the Rainbooms did. They were also all each other had. Sunset wondered if those factors had anything to do with it.

Apparently they still weren't getting along that well, judging from what she had just gleaned from Sonata's unwelcome comments. It sounded like the third member of their group had departed. But where would she go if she wasn't planning to come back?

Sunset's eyes widened. Maybe it was a long shot, but what if they knew the portal was open? Maybe Aria would decide to go back to Equestria. She was harmless enough here now, but what would happen if she crossed over?

Sunset leaped up worriedly. She couldn't let a possible enemy go back through the portal and cause trouble for Twilight and her friends.

"Where're you going? Your food's not ready yet."

Sunset jumped. Sonata had come back, looking honestly curious. Adagio was nowhere in sight.

"You said you lost Aria," Sunset said urgently. "Do you know where she was going?"

Sonata pouted. "She thinks things would be better back in Equestria, so she's going back there."

"And you and Adagio don't want to go back?" Sunset said in some surprise, even as her heart sank to know that her suspicions were correct.

"Adagio doesn't, now that we don't have our powers." Sonata shrugged. "I don't really know what I want. I don't like this place either. But I also don't think it sounds any fun to go back with Aria and not have our powers." She made a face. "Nothing is much fun any more, thanks to you and your friends."

"Well, I'm sorry about that, but I'm not sorry we stopped you," Sunset returned. "We couldn't let you hypnotize the entire student body!"

Sonata frowned, but said, "Yeah, I guess you couldn't, because of that whole good guys and bad guys thing. You're the good guys and we're the bad guys. You know, it's kind of funny thinking about that, since you were the bad guy before us."

Sunset opened her mouth to reply, but stopped. Sonata was right. Sunset even felt some level of pity for the Dazzlings, since she knew what it was like to want to be popular and well-liked and go about trying to achieve it in all the wrong ways. After the Battle of the Bands, she had even looked for the girls, hoping to find them and perhaps extend the same friendship to them that had been extended to her by Twilight. She hadn't had any success then. But now, suddenly, two of them were right here and the third was high-tailing it to the portal.

"You're right," she said.

Sonata blinked again, honestly shocked. "I am?!"

"Yes." Sunset gave her a firm look. "Listen. Do you really want Aria to go away?"

Sonata scrunched up her face, pondering the question. "Sometimes I sure don't like her much," she admitted. "But when I try to think of her never being around any more at all . . . I'm not sure I like that, either."

"Then let's get her back," Sunset proclaimed.

Sonata stared at her. "You'd do that? Why?"

"Well, I really don't want her going back to Equestria and making trouble for my friend there," Sunset said wryly. "But it's not just that. I don't like to see a group of friends split apart for any reason."

"Friends?!" Sonata gawked. "We're not friends!"

"Maybe not," Sunset conceded, "but you've been together so long that you admitted yourself it's hard to think of a life without Aria in it."

"That's true," Sonata nodded. "I think it would be kind of boring without her around again ever."

"Well, I don't."

Both girls snapped to attention as Adagio joined the scene. She held out Sunset's take-out bag on a tray, looking very putout indeed. "I should have known that a goody-two-shoes like you would think she could resolve all the problems between us and turn us good too."

"Right now I just want to stop Aria from making another mistake," Sunset said as she accepted the bag. "And Sonata has admitted that she wants Aria to come back. If you don't, that's fine. You don't have to be around them." She paused. "But I think deep down, you really want them around. You've stuck together all this time, even now that you don't have each other's powers to rely on."

"She's got a point," Sonata chirped.

"No, she doesn't," Adagio retorted. "I could have gotten away from you or Aria whenever I felt like it."

"So why didn't you?" Sonata countered.

"Because it was just easier to stay together." Adagio carried the tray back to the counter, the others following her. "And if you really want to go after Aria, be my guests. I'm sure by now she's already gone through the portal."

"We'll see," Sunset replied, heading for the door.

Sonata trailed after her. "You're really not coming, Adagio?"

Adagio still looked putout, but finally in resignation she set the tray down. "I suppose this might be worth watching, even if you don't succeed. And I don't think you will."

"You think Aria is that determined to go back?" Sunset asked.

"Why not?" Adagio shrugged. "There's nothing for her here."

Sunset wondered if she was imagining what sounded like a bit of guilt in Adagio's voice. She also had to wonder if it had actually been Aria's idea to go back tonight. If the Dazzlings had gotten into a heated argument, maybe Adagio had even suggested it and now felt too prideful to take it back, even if she wanted to. She was coming with them now in any case, no matter what reason she gave as to why.

Adagio and Sonata detoured to the back room to pick up their coats before they followed Sunset into the cold December night. "Hey," Sonata realized, "Aria didn't even get her coat."

Adagio rolled her eyes. "Once she realized, she probably had too much pride to come for it. Of course, she could have gone through the back way to get it so we wouldn't see her."

"Didn't you see it when you got yours?" Sunset frowned.

"No," Adagio retorted. "But someone else could have got it instead of her. I know at least one of the other waitresses was eyeing it."

"Okay, we'll worry about that later," Sunset said. "It's not that far to the school from here."

They walked in silence for several minutes, each caught up in thoughts of what might happen when they arrived . . . or what might have already happened.

"So why haven't _you_ gone back through the portal?" Sonata blurted out.

"There's a lot of reasons," Sunset answered, "but I guess the most important is because this world is my home now. I don't want to go back, except for a visit."

"How could you like it here that much?" Adagio found herself grumbling.

"It's hard to explain it to anyone who hates it that much," Sunset said. "And I know you won't want to hear this, but one of the biggest reasons is because I finally have friends. And they _do_ include me now; I'm not just waiting in the wings."

Adagio looked unimpressed. Sonata just blinked. "For realsies? It makes that big a difference to have friends?"

"It really does," Sunset nodded. "You understand a little of that, even if you don't want to believe it."

"You mean because we're going after Aria," Adagio said in irritation.

"Yes," Sunset confirmed. "You don't want her to go away. Or at least, Sonata doesn't."

"Yeah, but it's not like we're friends," Sonata said, twirling a piece of hair around her finger. "None of us even know what that's like."

Adagio looked like she wanted to make a crack about friendship not even being a good thing, but since Sunset had declared that she was no longer being excluded, Adagio doubted anything she said would have an impact. She grudgingly chose to remain silent instead.

By now they were coming up on the school. And, somewhat to their surprise, there was still a figure at the statue, slowly walking around it and examining it from every angle. To Sunset, she seemed quite hesitant. Perhaps she was having second thoughts after all.

"There's Aria!" Sonata announced. She broke into a run. "Aria!"

Aria looked up with a jerk. "Sonata?" For the briefest moment she sounded surprised. Then her usual belligerence returned and she said, "What are you doing here?"

"Stopping you from going through the portal!" Sonata replied as she caught up with a bounce. "I don't want you to go!"

"Why not?" Aria retorted warily.

"Because . . ." Sonata rocked back and forth, not quite sure how to answer. "Because then there's no one around to be a grouch. Yeah, because of that."

Aria's expression said that she found that a very typical Sonata response. But for once she didn't insult the other girl. Instead she looked from her to Adagio and Sunset as they ran up too. That caused her to take a defensive step back. "What's going on?"

"Sunset Shimmer convinced Sonata to go running after you," Adagio said boredly.

"She already wanted to. I just convinced her to go through with it," Sunset replied.

Aria wasn't as disagreeable as Sunset had worried she might be. But she said, "And I guess if I try, you're all going to go in after me." She looked to Sunset. "You just don't want me ending up in the world where Twilight Sparkle lives."

"That's right, I don't," Sunset agreed. "I know you're not happy living in this world, but let me ask you one question. Why did you stick it out until now? You knew for some time about the portal being open constantly after your defeat."

"I don't have to tell you anything," Aria insisted, folding her arms.

"No, you don't. I just want you to think for a while about why you've stayed." Sunset looked firmly into Aria's eyes. "If it was worth it then, isn't it still worth it now?"

Aria held the gaze for a moment and then looked away, uncomfortable. ". . . I'm not going through tonight anyway," she said at last. "I don't have my coat."

Sunset hid a smile, knowing that was a flimsy excuse. She wouldn't need a coat in Equestria. But Sunset said nothing about it. Neither did Adagio.

Sonata did, although it was debatable whether she actually thought deeply about the remark and what it really meant. "Yeah!" she exclaimed. "Aren't you cold?!"

Aria scowled. "At least it's not snowing."

"Well, let's get back," Adagio said impatiently. "I still don't want to lose my job."

"We could all lose our jobs," Sonata proclaimed.

"And then it will be my fault, won't it?" Aria grumbled.

"We didn't _have_ to come," Adagio pointed out. "It was our choice."

Again Aria looked somewhat surprised. But all she said was, "That's true."

Sunset did smile as she walked back with them. Befriending these three would certainly be a challenge, but she had at least got her foot in the door. And while it would probably be almost impossible to get them to admit it, they did have a certain level of caring for each other. Even Adagio seemed happier as they walked.

xxxx

The café was closing. Sunset had finished her meal some time ago and had helped find Aria's coat before leaving and promising to drop in again. Now the Dazzlings were busy cleaning up the tables and preparing to leave as well.

"Why were you with Sunset Shimmer anyway?" Aria asked with a bit of a frown as she wiped down a table.

"She was here getting something to eat and we found each other," Sonata replied.

"And you told her I was going to go through the portal?" Aria said in exasperation.

"Well . . . it just kind of came out," Sonata said.

"You had plenty of time you could have gone through before we showed up," Adagio said, coming by with a broom. "Why didn't you?"

Aria shrugged. "Like you said, unless things have changed, we'd probably be imprisoned. This place isn't like Equestria, but at least we're free to go where we want. And having the other sirens laugh at me didn't sound fun either. Then you showed up and Sonata didn't want me to go through anyway, so that made up my mind."

Knowing she wasn't likely to get any other reason from Aria, Adagio didn't try. "That's better anyway," she said. "It takes all of us to make up the rent."

Aria rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that's what I'm needed for," she muttered.

She blinked when a red-and-white object was shoved in her face. "Have a candy cane," Sonata chirped. "It's the last one there."

For a moment Aria just stared at it, not responding. Then, slowly, she took it with a touched smirk. "Thanks."

Adagio turned away. They'd be arguing again before long and Sonata would say something stupid and Adagio would find her patience shredded. But for now, she actually was glad that they were still a trio.

Even if she wouldn't admit that her feelings were for any other reason than having enough to pay the rent.


End file.
